Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ireland is like a tadpole in terms of what it fishes. Does BirdWatch Ireland have counterparts in the Netherlands or other countries which are trying to explain to the latter the impact of what they are doing?

When the quota was distributed, we got the worst length of the piece of straw. Four ships in Donegal almost caught more in an hour than we would catch in a year with our gear. We need to look at curtailing the big guys from coming in and mopping up everything. There is an opportunity and we should be able to put more Irish trawlers out with Irish people working on them. This would get rid of the big things while still not catching as much.

On what are the figures for employment at 4% or 5% based? Have the figures allowed for trawlers getting bigger and fishing becoming more efficient over the years? The witnesses will go over and look for a hit in respect of this issue but they are hitting a lot of Irish people who have damn all quota. Other countries are coming into our waters, swiping our fish and making a living out of it. I am sure our Minister is well aware of the problem but we need to make Europe aware that we should not be hitting the small dinghy, which the Irish guy has compared to the big trawler someone else has registered in some other country. When common fisheries are being discussed by the different countries of the EU we need to protect the Irish fishing fleet and we need to make sure the foreign fleets mopping up our fish are curtailed. We should be able to put this argument in Europe and I think our Minister would back such an approach rather than agreeing to 20% across the board. It is like the mouse and the elephant. We need to make sure the smaller man is looked after in these negotiations.